Month: April 2015

Bundestag speech by MP Sahra Wagenknecht: EU policy has destroyed Ukraine and damaged Europe

Posted by

0

Posted on Fort Russ

Speech in Bundestag by Sahra Wagenknecht.
March 19, 2015
April 9, 2015
Translated from German by Tom Winter

Mr President, honored ladies and gentlemen, Frau Chancellor.

At your best times, German foreign policy had two priorities: Unity for Europe and a good neighbor policy with Russia. It should give you food for thought, Frau Merkel, if you would listen,

[Volker Kauder: That’s rude!]

that nationalism and strife in Europe, during your ten years in office, are thriving like never before, and as regards Russia, a policy of outreach has given way to a new Cold War.

[Applause from the Left]

Not long ago, the head of the influential think-tank Stratfor, with striking bluntness, explained the US interest in Europe: The chief interest of the United States is to prevent coordination between Germany and Russia, since, literally “united they are the only power that can threaten us,” i.e. threaten the US.

This perceived threat to US interests has been achieved successfully for the foreseeable future. That started as the EU tried to get countries out of their economic and political cooperation with Russia in the framework of the Eastern Partnership.

[Claudia Roth, Greens: That’s absurd!]

Frau Merkel, naturally this was aimed at Russia, but it was also contrary to the interests of the countries involved. You, not Russia, pushed them to the either-or.

[Applause from the Left]

Resultantly Ukraine has lost the great part of its industry. Today, the country is a bankrupt state, where people go hungry, shiver, and have salaries lower than people have in Ghana.

But the confrontation with Russia has not only destroyed Ukraine, it has damaged all of Europe. It is, in fact, an open secret that the United States is stirring the conflict with Russia on economic grounds. When the US administration talks about Human Rights, they’re actually meaning drilling rights or mining rights. Right now in Ukraine there is in view a hell of a lot of shale gas to frack.

[Applause from the Left]

If now, in the framework of the Energy Union of other pipeline routes, we’re talking increasing independence from Russian gas, then you should tell the people in honesty what that means: increasing dependence on much more expensive and ecologically devastating US fracked gas. I do not consider that a responsible view.

[Applause from the Left]

The list is long, Frau Merkel, of earlier chief politicians who criticise your Russia policy. In that list we find the names of your predecessors Gerhard Schroeder, Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt, and even Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Perhaps this is what led to your backing off. In any case, it is correct, that you, with French President Hollande, took the initiative: Minsk II has really led to significantly fewer deaths there in recent weeks than in the weeks and months preceding; the door to a peaceful solution has been opened.

[Applause from the Left]

This is naturally an important new situation, and you, Frau Bundeskanzlerin, and the French President deserve recognition.

[Tino Sorge, CDU/CSU: Then say so from time to time!]

However, the person that the peace and security in Europe depend on must now go forward, with follow-through, and with backbone. This is naturally a problem, since follow-through and backbone haven’t exactly been your strong suit.

[Applause from the Left; grumblings from CDU/CSU]

Of course, it is not acceptable, when the shooting persists from the ranks of the insurgents,

[Tino Sorge: Not acceptable!]

but when Ukrainian troops — or the Nazi battalions fighting for them — keep right on shooting, then it is quite less unacceptable, and no critical word from you is heard.

[Applause from the Left]

Why do you not come forward with words of censure when the Ukrainian regime, notwithstanding its foreseeable bankruptcy, budgets four times as much for arms as it did last year? This doesn’t assure us that the road to peace has any actual support in the Ukrainian regime!

Furthermore, the US and Britain sending military advisors and delivering weapons is not a matter of supporting the peace process, but of torpedoing it. But do you now envision sanctions against the US and Britain? I believe that this whole business of sanctions was a huge mistake through which Europe shot itself in the foot. The sanctions should not be extended.

[Applause from the Left]

We do not need any more tanks. We do not need a 3,000-man NATO intervention troop in Eastern Europe, that protects nobody, but instead puts all Europe further at risk.

[Applause from the Left]

Helmut Schmidt got it right when he warned already in 2007, that, when it comes to world peace, there is far less risk from Russia than from America, and that NATO is only a tool for maintaining US/American hegemony. And if that is correct, then we are left with one set conclusion: that Europe must finally make policy separate from, and independent of, the United States.

[Applause from the Left]

Mr Juncker has put forward the thesis, that we need a European Army to show that we are in earnest about defending European values against Russia. This shows just one thing, how very far we have come from what the founding fathers of European Union wanted.

[Applause from the Left]

Back then it was all about — as you yourself have often said — peace, democracy, and solidarity. Never again should nationalism and hatred separate the lands of Europe. But to defend these values, no armed battalions are needed!

If you want to defend democracy, Frau Merkel, then see to it that the lands of Europe are at last ruled by elected governments rather than financial markets, not by the one-time investment banker Mario Draghi, and, further, not by you.

[Applause from the left; interjection from Michael Grosse-Bromer: Disassociate yourself from the violence right now. That would be a big step!]

If you want democracy, then stop the so-called Free Trade Agreements, stop the TTIP that would make elected governments just a farce.

[Applause from the Left]

That would be the defending of European values! That would be a defence of democracy, exposing these unspeakable TTIP negotiations and comparable dealings.

If you want to see a unified Europe, then stop humiliating other countries and imposing programs that rob the young generations of their future.

[Manuel Sarrazin, Greens, “You’re right with Greece!”]

Stop prescribing so-called structural reforms in Europe, that only lead to growing inequality and an ever growing low-wage sector.

Here in Germany meanwhile, in consequence of these policies, three million people, in spite of having a job, are so poor they can’t stay warm, haven’t enough to eat — let alone afford going on a vacation! Instead of trying to explain this export-bashing policy, it is high time — and very much in Europe’s interest — to correct it. And it is not least the German wage-dumping that is stifling the other countries of the monetary union.

[Applause from the Left]

Finance Minister Schaeuble has recently instructed the Greek government: “Yeah, governing is always just a rendezvous with reality.”

[Michael Grosse-Broemer (CDU/CSU): Right! Max Straubinger (CDU/CSU): And so it is!]

So one can only say “That would be good” well, that would be a good thing when the German government could only experience its own rendezvous with reality. Because it was not Syriza, but instead, the sister parties to the CDU/CSU and SPD that over the decades stacked up the huge deficits, so that they and the upper crust could stuff their pockets.

[Applause from the Left]

The reality is also that under the protectorate of the troika that you still treasure so much, whose criminal activities you can see in the documentary by Harald Schuman, the Greek debt just got bigger and the Greek billionaires got richer.

And you want to keep it up? Then I can only say “Good night!”

And if you want our money back, get it from those that took it, and that was not the nurses, nor the Greeks on pensions: it was the international banks and the Greek Upper Crust. It’s from these you could help the Greek government recover its money.

Who advances credit to one already overloaded with debt will never see his money again, but the responsibility is on you, Frau Merkel, and you, Mr. Schaeuble, and not on the new Greek government which is now hardly two months in office.

As for the whole debate over possible reparations, I can only say that, no matter how the question gets juridically evaluated, the least one should expect from the German State is some minimum of sensibility in dealing with the issue.

[Applause, Left; laughter, CDU/CSU]

I must say, you still laugh. That is sad. In view of how German occupiers ravaged Greece, and that a million Greek men and women lost their lives in this dark chapter of German history, I find the flip remarks from you, Mr. Schaeuble, and from you, Mr. Kauder, simply disrespectful, and I am ashamed.

[Applause from the Left as well as from Juergen Tritten, cries from CDU/CSU: Oh!]

In order to recall that the unrolling of history also goes the other way, may I, in closing, quote from the speech of Richard von Weizsaecker on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Liberation — I am just finishing, Mr. President — the speech concerned principally Russia and Eastern Europe, but it naturally also holds good for Greece:

“When we think about what our eastern neighbors had to suffer during the war, we understand better that balance, easing up, and a peaceful neighborhood with these lands abide as the central given of German foreign policy. What matters, is that both sides remember, and that both sides have respect for the other.”

Yes, only when we remember, and only when we respect each other — only then will we get back a policy of being good neighbors, both inside the EU, and with Russia.

[Sustained applause from the Left]

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/wagenknecht-eu-policy-has-destroyed.html

http://www.sahra-wagenknecht.de/de/article/2090.holen-sie-sich-unser-geld-bei-den-banken-und-der-griechischen-oberschicht-zurueck.html

 

Kiev junta launches a large scale attack on Novorossia right in time for Russian Orthodox Easter

Posted by

0

From Fort Russ

Russian Orthodox Easter is April 12.

April 9, 2015
Translated by Kristina Rus
Based on reports from Rusvesna

Ex-Minister of Defence of DPR Igor Strelkov:

“In general, we can say that the ceasefire is over – the entire front is under fire, including artillery. Shock troops of the enemy moved to the forefront.”

Donetsk under fire

War correspondent “Step” reports: 

Shells are whistling again over the cities of Donbass. In Donetsk the sirens of ambulances and emergency services are heard. Under fire: Kievsky district, Oktyabrsky village, Panfilov mine village, Gladkova, Severny, Putilovka.

The entire evening of April 9 there was a battle in the village of Spartak and near Peski. The punishers used artillery guns, tanks, mortars, heavy barreled artillery. Under the cover of artillery, the enemy attempted to seize the positions of the militia in Spartak and near the airport. During the battle, this attempt was severely suppressed.

Also suddenly the positions of the militia near the town of Yasynovataya were attacked. There was a battle using small arms. To the West of Petrovsky district of Donetsk working mortars are also heard, as well as grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

From the occupied Volnovakha Dokuchayevsk was fired on. The outskirts of the city are under a heavy fire of the enemy, the people are hiding in shelters fearing the assault on the city by the punishers, who have assembled the biggest formation in this area of about 8 thousand people.

According to a resident of Dokuchayevsk, “Locals demand that the militia do not leave them alone and hold positions at any cost, women are hysterically crying, saying that Ukrainians will go into the city and start a massacre. Older women bless the passing trucks with soldiers and pray for the victory and a speedy liberation to the district from the Ukrainian troops”.

Over Donetsk about a dozen enemy drones were spotted, one of which was shot down near the Lidiyevka mine.

The militia is put on full alert and is ready for a full-scale attack of the enemy.

Shirokino

On April 9, 2015 near Mariupol in Shirokino there was a fierce battle. There were dead and wounded among the militia and the Ukrainian occupation troops.

Tanks approaching Donetsk

00:10. Donetsk.

From several directions at the moment, the occupants are pulling the tank columns to Donetsk.

In particular, a few dozen tanks approached the airport from the direction of Marinka and Avdeevka.

 

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/kiev-junta-launches-large-scale-attack.html

Czech and Slovak reservists’ memorandum against NATO. “We reject fighting in NATO ranks against Russia”

Posted by

0

From Russia Insider, April 6, 2015

Group of Czech and Slovak reservists will not support NATO in a war against Russia

Czechoslovak reserve forces against the war planned by NATO commanders

On January 19th 2015 the facebook group, which combines all members of the CSLA, PS, VMV, SNB in reserve or decommissioned, issued an important memorandum, which has become even more urgent in light of the situation today. A defensive back up location in the event that the group gets „disappeared“ from Facebook, the group of the same name exists on VK.com. as well.

For the first time since the end of the 2nd World War we see a genuine threat of war yet again. Consequently, we consider it necessary to issue the following statement.

We, the Czechoslovak soldiers in reserve, unanimously reject any participation in battles that are geopolitical acts of aggression of the global elite by way of NATO and the support of our governments.

We swore to defend our homeland the Czech and Slovak Republics. We swore to protect the freedom and independence of our proud and sovereign nations, for which our ancestors laid down their lives in the world wars. We are guided by this oath in a civilian initiative to deal with a crisis situation. Freedom and independence is being jeopardized long time by a system of representative pseudo-democracy, where an elected representative does not have the obligation to advance the interests of voters and in practice, laws represent but the personal interests of the legislators, the interests of political parties and economic interest groups. Our homeland is under the pressure of global elites and economic interest groups, who are doing away with the power of citizens through a system of representative democracy.

Our deliberately flawed constitution and charter of rights and freedoms is being perverted and constitutional laws are violated by legislators themselves. Legislative power is being privatized, executive power is being politicized and judicial power corrupted by lobbying laws and pressure from our governments. The results are an unplayable public deficit, deindustrialization, the privatization of the republic’s property and defrauded budgets, food and energy dependence, the privatization of natural resources, pensions and the health of citizens. Our country has been unlawfully divided, looted, indebted, people enslaved and their families liquidated by repossession genocide, national infrastructure transferred into the hands of western corporations. Destructive chaos and despair dominates in the community.

For this reason, we the Czechoslovak soldiers in reserve recognize our military oath and together we come with a vision for the defense of our nations. We unequivocally reject fighting in the ranks of NATO against the Russian federation or other Slavic nations and we likewise intend to stand up firmly through organized civilian pressure against the further liquidation of our democracy, freedom and independence. We are uniting in a crisis situation and by utilizing our civilian and military skills and expertise we intend to create sufficiently strong, organized civil pressure for the period of time necessary to assert our patriotic goals.

We swore allegiance to our homeland, the Czech and Slovak Republics.

We, the Czechoslovak reserve soldiers, will fulfill this oath!

http://russia-insider.com/en/czechoslovak-reservists-facebook-group-issue-memorandum-against-nato-planned-war/5316

http://www.globalresearch.ca/czech-and-slovak-reservists-memorandum-against-nato-we-reject-fighting-in-nato-ranks-against-russia/5441588

Massive bust of Snowden installed on war monument

Posted by

0

From ANIMAL, April 6, 2015

THERE’S A MASSIVE, ILLICIT BUST OF EDWARD SNOWDEN STUCK TO A WAR MONUMENT IN BROOKLYN

By  | April 6, 2015 – 11:03AM

While most people slept, a trio of artists and some helpers installed a bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Brooklyn on Monday morning. The group, which allowed ANIMAL to exclusively document the installation on the condition that we hide their identities, hauled the 100-pound sculpture into Fort Greene Park and up its hilly terrain just before dawn. They fused it to part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to Revolutionary War soldiers. As of press time, the sculpture was still there. UPDATE: Parks Department put a tarp over the bust and removed it this afternoon.

The idea for the Snowden tribute was conceived about a year ago by two New York City-based artists with a history of pulling off notable public interventions. They linked up with a renowned sculptor on the West Coast who was sympathetic to their cause.

snowdenbust-apr6-5531
The artists admit that Snowden probably wouldn’t approve of the project, since he never wanted the leaks to be about him, but they hope he’d understand why they did it. In a statement about the project, which they have entitled, “Prison Ship Martyrs Monument 2.0,” they wrote:

Fort Greene’s Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is a memorial to American POWs who lost their lives during the Revolutionary War. We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies. It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSA’s 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light. All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.

Our goal is to bring a renewed vitality to the space and prompt even more visitors to ponder the sacrifices made for their freedoms. We hope this inspires them to reflect upon the responsibility we all bear to ensure our liberties exist long into the future.

In 2013, the Snowden leaks exposed an expansive, covert surveillance program that spied on U.S. citizens, residents and even persons abroad, the likes of which the world had never before seen. While activists and a number of journalists have hailed Snowden as a hero, conservatives and politicians have called him a “coward” and a “traitor.” Snowden sought asylum in Moscow, where he remains in exile.

snowdenbust-apr6-5545
The artists said they’re dismayed that despite the trove of damning evidence the leaks exposed, the public has largely moved on from the story and no substantial actions have been taken against the NSA. “There’s a media landscape that has painted him as a criminal,” said one of the two New York artists. “You need something theatrical and large to counterbalance the Fox News-iness of the texture of the conversation out there.” At first, the pair thought about making a full-size statue of the former NSA contractor, but were later talked down from that idea by the sculptor. He recommended a bust.

Measuring 4-feet tall, Snowden’s head was placed atop one of the four columns that lie at the monument’s edge, above the eagles. The bust is made of hydrocal, a high quality sculpting material that’s commonly used in places like Las Vegas to create Roman-looking things, castles and other mega props casinos incorporate into their facades. Seeing it up close, you could never tell that you were looking at a plaster-like substance. In fact, over a dozen people walking their dogs passed by the new bust on Monday morning without noticing the unsanctioned piece. Both the color and design of the bust expertly matches the existing sculptures there, from its bronze patina finish to Snowden’s hair — which mimics the texture of the feather on the eagle. The artists also added letters spelling out Snowden’s name in an official-looking font befitting of a monument.

snowdenbust-apr6-5557
While it was very important that the piece be more than just a prop or paper mache effigy, the artists didn’t want to damage the surface that the bust would be bound to, either. After some debate, they decided on an adhesive that would firmly hold the head in place, yet could be removed without marring the monument.

The materials needed to create a bust of this type cost thousands of dollars, and the pair ponied up the cash. It then took a little over six months to sculpt, mold, cast and ship to New York. Had the sculptor charged market rates, he said it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars. “The amount of work that goes into this kind of stuff, it’s easily a 30 grand project,” said the 30-something sculptor. “If it were bronze, it could be a $100,000 piece of artwork, maybe more.”

The artists are fully aware of the bust’s inevitable destruction and have left themselves a few options, including one that involves deploying an army of mini-Snowden heads. “We have a full size mold that can be poured again and its been 3D rendered, so we have the ability to print smaller ones at scale,” they said.
snowdenbust-apr6-5571

(Video/Photos: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)
Follow-up article
By Prachi Gupta
April 7, 2015

Inspired by the Edward Snowden bust that guerrilla artists erected atop a Brooklyn war monument on Monday morning, a different group of artists returned to the site hours after officials dismantled the illegal statue. They deployed the Illuminator to project an eerie blue image over the column where the 100-pound bust had stood earlier.

Fuck the Police (State): Artists Protest Removal of Edward Snowden Sculpture With Ghostly Projection

In a statement, the Illuminator’s Kyle Depew wrote via email:

Inspired by the actions of these anonymous artists, The Illuminator Art Collective recreated the intervention ephemerally by projecting an image of the sculpture into a cloud of smoke. Our feeling is that while the State may remove any material artifacts that speak in defiance against incumbent authoritarianism, the acts of resistance remain in the public consciousness. And it is in sharing that act of defiance that hope resides.

The Illuminator was borne out of Occupy Wall Street to shed a literal light on the issues that plague the 99%. The audio and video projection system sits in a van, along with a selection of informative reading materials. They recently collaborated with MoveOn.org in Washington D.C. to shed light on the U.S.’s nuclear discussions with Iran.

A group of activists and anonymous artists first set up the Snowden bust at Fort Greene Park’s Prison Ship Martyrs Monument on Monday to call attention to the NSA’s surveillance practices and to question what it means to be a hero in the 21st century. “We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies,” they wrote in a statement provided to ANIMAL. “It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSA’s 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light. All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze.”

Parks Department employees covered the bust with a tarp Monday morning, and by midday, it had been removed and taken to the 88th precinct. The NYPD is investigating the incident.

Putin wages a quiet revolution during his time off

Posted by

0

From Fort Russ

April 3, 2015
Crimson Alter for PolitRussia
Translated by Kristina Rus

I was always surprised by the conspiracy theories surrounding our president. Putin is a unique politician. He is extremely sincere; sincere exactly to the extent possible for the head of a nuclear superpower. Putin’s style of communication inevitably has the strongest effect on the work of his subordinates. Accordingly, when Peskov live on Echo Moscow declared that “The agenda is now very intense – related to crises, and so on. Currently there is a constant communication with the government, and state-owned companies, and the banking sector. Naturally, it is very time consuming“, then his version of events should be considered the most reliable. There is no need for conspiracy theories, when on the economic front, in Russia and abroad, there are truly revolutionary changes taking place. Why does the media pay so little attention to that? This is another question to which we shall return.

So what happened in the international and Russian economy during the period of Putin’s “disappearance” from TV screens?

1. China announced about the creation of their own analog of the inter-bank payment system SWIFT, announcing the deadline – the end of 2015. December 2015 – January 2016 can now be considered the moment of transition of the economic war between the US and the rest of the world into an active phase.

2. Putin instructed the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank to develop a plan of financing the construction of power plants in Crimea. Quoting Minister of Energy, Novak:

“The Central Bank in this case helps us execute a financial transaction in order to provide liquidity to the creditor bank… There is a request to the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance to develop and present a financing plan … subject to the payment of interest on loans, this is around 80 billion rubles” 

According to the [colonizing – KR] constitution [from the 1990’s – KR], Putin (or Medvedev) has no right to give instructions to the Central Bank. Our Central Bank is independent, but it turns out that not anymore. If the president’s order will be fulfilled as stated by Novak (the Central Bank gives money to the bank, the bank gives money to the Russian company for the construction of power plants in Crimea), then we get, what patriots of all stripes had long demanded: the Central Bank begins to finance the economic development of the country with its emission. This is a revolution. A quiet revolution. 

By the way, mortgage and agricultural loans will be subsidized – this is also a big success.

3. After approval by the government, the Central Bank of Kazakhstan announced a plan for the de-dollarization of the economy until the end of 2016.

The main goal is to get rid of macroeconomic instability, which is created by the U.S. currency. Nazarbayev is a politician with great intuition and serious connections in Beijing and Moscow. A final approval of the policy of de-dollarization right now is a clear signal about the position of Kazakhstan in the context of impending acute phase of economic confrontation.

4. President Putin on March 10 instructed the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the government to determine the feasibility of creation of a monetary union of the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union). RIA Novosti leaked that the new currency of EEU, Altyn (or Evraz) may appear in 2016. 

5. Goldman Sachs, one of the top U.S. banks, the shadow comptroller of the Fed, and the “wallet” of that portion of the global elite, which Khazin calls “the conditional Rothschilds”, produces an analytical forecast, which recommends… to buy Russian bonds. To buy Russian bonds! Top American Bank recommends buying the bonds of the country, whose economy Obama supposedly “ripped to shreds”!

6. Britain expresses the desire to enter into the capital of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – international financial institution, which China has founded as a rival and a replacement of the International Bank, which is controlled by the USA. London dumps Washington in front of the entire world. Washington’s reaction is reminiscent of a reaction of a redneck who caught his British bride in bed with a Chinese boyfriend – furious. A senior official from the Obama administration told the Financial Times that the British initiative to enter the Chinese capital project “is not the best way to interact with emerging power”. Under “emerging power” the American cuckold implies China! The interesting thing is that London did not even bother to respond to the outrage of Washington.

In this context it is easy to guess what Putin was occupied with. He tamed the Central Bank, maintained international contacts and did everything so that Russia will be on top after the hot phase of the emerging global economic conflict is over.

So far, everything is going well. The victory will be ours.

April 4, 1968 — the execution of Martin Luther King

Posted by

Today marks the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.

This amazing man, whose legacy continues in his words and deeds, was murdered as he prepared to lead a march on Washington, DC.

In 1999, the King Family finally succeeded in having the evidence heard in court which showed King was assassinated by a collaboration of the United States government with Mafia members. James Earl Ray was a “patsy” – set up to take the blame. He had nothing to do with it. He was not a racist.

Many of the American perpetrators are still with us. Certainly, the US government and the agencies that committed this deed thrive and continue working domestically and in other countries.

Daylight exposes. Tell people. Don’t rely on the internet. Talk to people, face to face. Tell your officials. Demand public recognition and response to these crimes by the U.S. government.

The transcript of the trial is here: http://www.thekingcenter.org/civil-case-king-family-versus-jowers It is also available in book form: The 13th Juror – The Official Transcript of the Martin Luther King Assassination Conspiracy Trial (ISBN 978-1442112155)

Dr. William Pepper, the attorney for the King family, wrote An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King (ISBN 978-1844672851) It includes additional and updated evidence.

This is the speech that Martin Luther King gave opposing the Vietnam War and American foreign policy, which set the clock ticking against him. He delivered it exactly one year before he was murdered:
http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/
Beyond Vietnam

Dr. King said:
“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”

Don’t be silent. Be a friend to peace, equality, harmony, and to people everywhere.

Excerpt from “Beyond Vietnam”:

… They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954-in 1945 rather-after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China-for whom the Vietnamese have no great love-but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all of this was presided over by United States influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem’s methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation’s only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call “fortified hamlets.” The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.

… The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

The Normandy landing, World War II, and the misrepresentation by the West

Posted by

0

Global Research, June 7, 2014
The Normandy Landing and World War II: The Lies Grow More Audacious
By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

If there were any doubts that Western “leaders” live in a fantasy make-believe world constructed out of their own lies, the G-7 meeting and 70th anniversary celebration  of the Normandy landing dispelled the doubts. 

The howlers issuing from these occasions are enough to split your sides.  Obama and his lap dog Cameron described the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, as “the greatest liberation force that the world has ever known” and took all the credit for the US and Britain for the defeat of Hitler.  No mention was made of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, which for three years prior to the Normandy landing had been fighting and defeating the Wehrmacht. 

The Germans lost World War II at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was fought from August 23, 1942 until February 2, 1943, when most of the remnants of the powerful German Sixth Army surrendered, including 22 generals.  

Nineteen months previously the largest invasion force ever assembled on planet earth invaded Russia across a one thousand mile front. Three million crack German troops; 7,500 artillery units, 19 panzer divisions with 3,000 tanks, and 2,500 aircraft rolled across Russia for 14 months. 

By June 1944, three years later, very little of this force was left. The Red Army had chewed it up.  When the so-called “allies” (a term which apparently excludes Russia) landed in France, there was little to resist them.  The best forces remaining to Hitler were on the Russian front, which collapsed day by day as the Red Army approached Berlin.

The Red Army won the war with Germany. The Americans and the British showed up after the Wehrmacht was exhausted and in tatters and could offer little resistance. Joseph Stalin believed that Washington and London stayed out of the war until the last minute and left Russia with the burden of defeating Germany.

Hollywood and popular writers have, of course, buried the facts.  Americans have all sorts of movies, such as “A Bridge Too Far,” that portray insignificant events, however heroic, as turning points in the war.  Nevertheless, the facts are clear.  The war was won on the Eastern front by Russia. Hollywood’s movies are fun, but they are nonsense. 

Russia is again on the outs with “the world community,”  because Obama’s plan to seize Ukraine and to evict Russia from its Black Sea base in Crimea has come a cropper.  Crimea has been a part of Russia for as long as the US has existed.  Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, stuck Crimea into the Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954 when Russia and Ukraine were part of the same country.  

When the Washington-imposed stooge government in Kiev recently declared that it was abolishing the use of the Russian language and arresting Ukrainians who had dual Russian citizenship and began tearing down Russian war memorials consecrated to the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis, the people in Crimea used the ballot box to disassociate from Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, first voting their independence and then voting for reunification with their mother country.

Washington, and the other G-7 countries following Washington’s orders, described this Crimean act of self-determination, which is exactly comparable to the act of self-determination declared by Britain’s American colonies, to be a case of “Russian invasion and annexation.”  Similar efforts to disassociate from Kiev are underway in other former Russian territories that today comprise eastern and southern Ukraine.

Washington has equated self-determination in eastern and southern Ukraine with “terrorism” and has encouraged its stooge in Kiev to use military violence against protesting civilians. The reason for branding separatists “terrorists” is to make it OK to kill them.

Continue reading →

Even America’s ‘media watchdogs’ hide U.S.’s Ukrainian nazification & ethnic cleansing

Posted by

0

By Eric Zuesse
Washington’s Blog, March 30, 2015

The U.S.’news’ media are so censored and controlled, so that even America’s ‘media watchdog’ organizations — mediamatters.org and fair.org on the left; and aim.org and mrc.org on the right — have hidden from the American public President Barack Obama’s Ukrainian coup in February 2014 that violently overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected President and replaced him with a Ukrainian nazi (racist-fascist) rabidly eliminationist anti-Russian, police-state regime in Kiev, which, ever since America’s coup there, has been ethnically cleansing the Ukrainian Donbass region that had voted 90% for the man, Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Obama Administration overthrew. None of this is reported in the U.S. ‘news’ media — and America’s ‘media watchdog’ organizations hide the media’s hiding of it, though these events could bring on a nuclear war with Russia, which is America’s real target in Ukraine, right next door to Russia.

On 14 January 2015, I headlined “The Most-Censored News Story of 2014 Was ___What___?” and reported that, after an investigation, I had found that, by far, the most-censored news story of 2014 in America was Obama’s coup and U.S.-supported ethnic-cleansing in Ukraine. Links were provided there to videos of the the U.S.-backed massacre in the Trade Unions Building in Odessa on 2 May 2014, and the following ethnic cleansing in the Donbass region. However, the U.S. even sponsors firebombings of Donbass in order to get rid of the residents there, and our ‘media watchdogs’ are even silent about the ’news’ being silent about that. And, here is a good video of America’s Ukrainian coup, which overthrew Yanukovych. Here is more about that coup. 

America is trying to conquer Russia, and the placement of nuclear missiles right next door to Russia, in Ukraine seems to be Obama’s objective. America’s ‘news’ media, and their ‘watchdogs,’ are doing a terrific job of hiding all of this from the American people. They wouldn’t do that if these events weren’t enormously important to the American aristocracy, who, it seems, have bought up all of the major mainstream and alternative news media. Scandals far less important than this ongoing one are routinely receiving much attention from the American press. However, even America’s ‘media watchdogs’ ignore this scandal of America’s press. Thus, there aren’t peace-marches and other public demonstrations about this, even though America’s bringing nazis to power in Ukraine is shocking. But you can find out all about it by clicking on the links here, and on the links within those linked-to news reports. It’s all history now, which was unfortunately never reported by U.S. media while it was still news.

———-

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/americas-media-watchdogs-hide-u-s-s-ukrainian-nazification-ethnic-cleansing.html

Nalivaychenko to purge, reorganize Ukrainian Security Service along OUN-UPA lines

Posted by

0

SBU is the Ukrainian Security Service
OUN-UPA are fascist Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. These organizations were responsible for the massacres in Volynia.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/07/11/volynia-massacre-in-light-of-the-politics-of-memory-ii.html

See interview below of former Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) Chief Yakimenko about current SBU Chief Nalivaychenko.

FSB is the Federal Security Service of Russia.

From Fort Russ

4/1/2015
Nalivaychenko to purge, reorganize SBU along OUN-UPA lines
By J.Hawk

SBU head Nalivaychenko gave an interview in which he said two things of interest:

1. He is aggressively purging the organization of its mid-level management. This is consistent with earlier statements by Poroshenko that a year ago 80% of SBU were FSB agents (!), which is why it was not able to prevent the Crimea and Donbass secession.

2. He believes that the best experience on which the SBU can rely is that of OUN-UPA counter-intelligence between 1930-1950. This implies a highly ideologized political secret police which is more concerned with maintaining a specific ideology or political course, rather than the integrity of the state.

How Ukraine intends to maintain its territorial integrity is a mystery that grows with every passing day. One day Poroshenko or Yatsenyuk claim ownership of victory over fascism, while the next they embrace OUN-UPA and other aspects of Ukrainian nationalism. These are entirely incompatible traditions–you can embrace one or the other (and then watch the other half of the country drift away), but not both. Then there’s the question of neighboring countries, none of which view the OUN-UPA as a benign phenomenon.

As a side note, the emphasis on ideological purity and reliance on the most fanatical factions of Ukraine’s political spectrum suggests Poroshenko increasingly views the domestic situation as the greatest threat to his power–which of course he should. I suppose the good news is that if most money, personnel, and attention is focused on the SBU, it makes life easier for the Donbass.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/nalivaychenko-to-purge-reorganize-sbu.html

Excerpt from interview with former Security Services Chief Aleksandr Yakimenko
http://rt.com/op-edge/mercenaries-at-maidan-ukraine-558/

Q: Is it true that Nalivaichenko allowed the CIA agents to work in the Security Service building?

AY: Yes, that’s true. He also handed personal files of his own employees over to the CIA agents to study. But their mission was interrupted by an armed coup. The Maidan do not appoint these people; rather, it’s the US that does it. It’s enough to look at the newly appointed officials: Parubiy, Gvozd, Nalyvaichenko are all people who followed somebody else’s orders, the orders of the US, not even Europe. They are directly linked to the American intelligence. They sought to delay the negotiations and prevent the incumbent president from striking a deal with Russia and Russia from helping to prop up the social and economic order in Ukraine. After that they were planning to depose the president and integrate Ukraine into Europe, using Russian money. Who was troubled by the victory of the EU and the pro-integration forces? Only the US. It was the only country concerned over a possible alliance of Europe, Russia and Ukraine. The Customs Union and the connection between Russia and Ukraine did not sit well with their plans, either.

They’d been doing it ever since Yushchenko was president, and we couldn’t get rid of them. Once we started to put pressure, they relocated to Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The most interesting part is that many regional governments spent budget money to pay for the so-called vyshkoli, i.e. training camps for militants to fight with various types of weapons.

All the orders were given either by the US embassy or by Jan Tombinski, a Polish representative who worked in the EU mission in Kiev. Poland played an invaluable role in the coup. It has always dreamt of restoring its former power and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Ever since the Maidan kicked off, our security service registered a dramatic increase in diplomatic correspondence coming in to various Western embassies in Kiev. There is one more mystery. Straight after this influx of correspondence we saw some foreign money at the Maidan and in Kiev exchange bureaus: the new, re-designed US dollar bank notes.

Q: So they were bringing in cash?

AY: Yes. Poroshenko, Firtash, Pinchuk – they all poured money into the Maidan. With all their assets in foreign banks, they found themselves trapped. So they had to follow orders from the West. All they were supposed to do was back the Maidan; otherwise they would have lost all their assets. They were thinking about their money rather than their own country. Unfortunately we couldn’t prevent the casualties, the people, mainly those who had come from the Western regions, were sent into the line of fire. The Maidan militants had left the barricades after the sniper fire started. But time will set the record straight.

Right Sector will join Ukrainian military but as an autonomous territorial defense organization

Posted by

0

From Fort Russ

3/31/2015
Kiev convinced the Right Sector to become part of the UAF
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

Rada Deputy and Ukrainian nationalist leader Dmitriy Yarosh announced that a procedure for incorporating the Right Sector into the UAF as an subordinate organization had been agreed upon. The two sides agreed at a closed meeting between Ukrainian MOD representatives and Yarosh in Dnepropetrovsk to adopt as a model the cooperation between the Tallinn government and the Estonia Defense Union, which began in the early 1990s.

“We agreed to introduce a bill that would establish the Right Sector as the basis for an organization similar to the Estonia Defense Union. We will have reserve units, combat units. This will be a compromise system, the golden middle which will satisfy both us and the government institutions,” Yarosh told Ukrainian journalists.

The Estonia Defense Union is a volunteer paramilitary formation which is part of the national army and which is financed by the state, but which at the same time retains certain autonomy. The EDU participates in national and international military exercises, and also prepares personnel for militias that patrol assigned territory.

Moreover, EDU units have their own command. Obviously it’s that aspect of the organization that persuaded the Ukrainian radicals to cooperate with the GenStaff, after all the Right Sector HQ said many times they would not accept a leader other than Yarosh. Therefore the nationalists will become an official part of the armed forces, while retaining certain autonomy.

We remind our readers that the Ukrainian MOD held negotiations over several months with the Right Sector activists, offering them various options for incorporation into GenStaff structure. The nationalists rejected all Kiev proposals, including full legalization of the movement in return for joining the military as contract servicemen.

There are fully justified concerns among Ukrainian politicians and experts that should the conflict in the Donbass fade away, yesterday’s volunteer fighters will create illegal armed formations aimed at, among others, the Kiev government.

Oleg Medvedev, an advisor to the president of Ukraine, admitted that the Kiev authorities had lost control over the National Guard. On his Facebook page, he blamed the volunteer battalions in creating disorders in Kharkov, where the Ukrainian activists picketed the state council in December, trying to force Mayor Gennadiy Kernes to resign. Medvedev proposed that they either return to the front, or find civilian work, and stop creating pickets and disorders in cities where they do not reside.

J.Hawk’s Comment: This is actually a sign of weakness on part of Poroshenko, not quite the “night of long knives”, but rather an “evening of short letter openers”. It’s one of several instances in recent days where Poroshenko, when trying to confront the right-wing nationalists, blinked first. One would think that he would follow up the success against Kolomoysky by mopping up the right-wing paramilitaries which represent the biggest threat to his own power at the moment. But instead he made them even more of a danger, both to himself and to the country as a whole. 

Conversely, the granting of autonomous status to the Right Sector makes Yarosh more powerful, and it’s not even clear whether Poroshenko was able to peel Yarosh away from Kolomoysky, who may well continue to fund the Right Sector, now a perfectly legal organization and moreover one with specific security responsibilities, thanks to its autonomous status. So now the Ukrainian neo-Nazis have a perfectly legal cover for conducting paramilitary training, something they could not have dreamed of before the Maidan. Ukraine is still firmly on course for its Doomsday.   Not that Ukraine is alone in doing this. In addition to Estonia, Poland is establishing a similar relationship with that country’s virulently nationalistic Rifle Associations in order to re-create something resembling territorial defense which once used to exist in a very robust form–but that was under the Socialist government of the Cold War era, back when Poland had a military worthy of the name. All in all, it looks like all the countries of Central Europe are inching toward fascism, it’s only a question of which one will be the first get a full-blown, openly fascist government.

http://www.fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/03/right-sector-will-become-autonomous.html